 I'll work with the director of Crankhost to a cultural event, that's right, a cultural event. Yeah, I know, some of you out there probably say, oh, way to go Lou, it sounds like you sold out. Well, I'm not proud of this, believe me, as a matter of fact, I'm pretty embarrassed. But you know, these times, money talks, you know, everybody needs it, so anyway, listen, for those of you out there who might be faithful Lou and fingers fans, just sit back and get comfortable, because I guarantee you, for a real snoozer tonight. The real entertainment up here, as a matter of fact, the angry housewives are going to be out here after these suits leave. Great kid, eat your cornflakes, that's the PG version, probably PC cultural folks out there tonight. All right, first though, we got to step through this cultural extravaganza, you know. You see, the cultural county, tell me how this goes, the cultural council of Santa Cruz County is being honored tonight here by the Santa Cruz County Arts Commission. I don't know, is this how this redundant to use a desk to be? Well, anyway, let's get this, artist of the year, classic band Pig Flop, I'll never forget. So anyway, besides reading this list of long titles, we're actually going to have some cultural entertainment here tonight. I was listening to some of them a little earlier, yeah, it's pretty bad, you know what I mean? Bad as in good, bad, not bad as in good. Anyway, also we're going to have some presentations. Now, don't worry, I told these guys that are running this, they got to get their butts out here by 9 o'clock, so don't worry, even though we may have some pretty boring presentations, hopefully there won't be long and boring presentations, okay? All right, now since this is how it's going, tonight, all the seven largest cultural nonprofits in this town are here. They're all going to be telling you about how great the cultural council is and all that stuff so they can like, you know, keep their cash flowing for the next year. All right, but that's just, you know, that's their thing, but I get this now, any one of them though, goes over three minutes. Any of you guys in your presentations goes over three minutes. Lance Lamaris, Lance, hey, Lance, oh, where are you guys? There he is, Lance. Now listen, Lance is the executive director of this cultural council thing, and he is prepared to cut the grant contract in half. I think you guys, it goes over three minutes, okay? You got that? Looking forward to this, you know, because Lance and I, we got this deal between the two of us, okay? If any of you local jokals go over three minutes tonight and this show goes past 9.05, I, Lude Fingers, get to emcee your sponsor recognition ceremony next year. All right, so you only got yourselves to play with it if you get like long wind or anything, okay? All right, so let's just sit back, enjoy this really exciting evening, and I'll tell you what, I just want to just kind of give you the show, so I'm going to go to the kitchen and taste those hors d'oeuvres that got in there, okay? All right, have fun. I'm going to keep it short, because I sure don't want to get anywhere near those current clippers. My name is Tim Jackson. I'm from the, the director of the Coulomba Jazz Center, and we are one of the sustained members of the cultural council. I'm also a past board member of the council, and I know quite a bit of what goes on there, and it's certainly a fine organization. What I'm going to just briefly talk a little bit about is an area that I'm not too involved in, but I know it's a, it is actually the major program of the cultural council. It is called the Specter Program. It is their artist in the schools program, where they send out professional artists to the grade schools, kindergarten through eighth, goes all year long, and it's, where the professional artist comes in and gives these students a certain number of hours per quarter or per year, however they work it, of their art. It's interdisciplinary, there's music, there's dance, there's theater, storytelling, all kinds of things to keep the children enlightened on all the beautiful cultural forms that we have in this world. They have a lot of different components to the program. They've got their classroom workshops, they're artists in residence program, multicultural residency projects, different performances, and artistically gifted talent program. Also, they're Young and Art, which is a, I think it's a one day festival. It happens each spring where there's a big get together. I believe it's been out of Cabrillo College where the artists come out and the children leave together. It's a very fun, fun day out there. But probably the biggest news for the Specter Program, the California Arts Council this year has instituted their first annual Governors Award for the Arts and the Cultural Council has been named, or actually the Specter Program has been named a winner in the Organizational Achievement Award in Arts and Education, so I think that that's a great way for Specter Program officials to the awards of the banquet and I'm really happy to see that for the program. At this point I would like to present, announce, introduce a very fine Specter artist, certainly one of the finest vocalists in this county. Would you please welcome Ms. Rita Lackey. So let me try it out on you and see if you see what kind of hand clap we've got. We did a lot of hand claps. So maybe if you could help me get the beat. Organizations through the grants program. The grants committee is one of the hardest working committees with the Cultural Council this year reviewing seven sustaining organizations and 48 project grants, proposals, a total of 52 awards were granted this year for over $150,000. This year the earthquake burdened us all and no less the grants committee who was additionally charged with reviewing applications for the Arts Recovery Fund, fondly known as ARF. The grants committee reviewed 124 applications totaling $1,216,000. 83 artists, 30 small organizations, and seven sustainers were awarded grants from $95 to $64,000. The grants committee headed by Dr. Cullen literally spends days in reviewing applications, conducting interviews with each candidate, and another few days in evaluations. And part of their determinations are to cover the wide spectrum of the arts, from literature, visual arts, dance, music, and theater. And representing the diverse geographic areas of this county, from San Lorenzo Valley to Watsonville. As a Cultural Council Board member, as I am now and have been a representative of both the smaller organizations and for the project grants and the larger organizations for the sustainers, I've had firsthand experience with the grants committee for the last 10 years and their devoted efforts. The arts community is indeed indebted to these 10 community members of the grants committee, and thank you for your hard work. Introducing our next artist is the UCSC Gamelan, which is now in its 13th year of programs that encompass not only the haunting Indonesian music, but also the programs of puppet theater and dance. The UCSC Gamelan are spectra artists with Cathy Foley, UCSC Gamelan. Please welcome. Husband, Rama, and incarnation of Vishnu, director of the universe. If you were gone, the whole universe would be in disarray. Let's see. You can't let your heart get down or give up hope. Just take a second. Again, you can see. It is the ring that I gave to my wife. Don't you know? I've come for Rama. Bring you back. Waiting for it. You know, it's a long, long jump over the sea. Hey, do they have any jingles around here? Hey, indeed. There is fruit everywhere within the sky. But look, there they are. Demons. Lots of demons. Oh, poor thing. Return to my husband. Tell him to come to me here. Do not go into the garden. Hey, wait a second. A few demons aren't going to scare me. I'll have my jangi fruit, and then I'll be on my way. Why do you do the air, Rama? Hey, don't worry, ladies and gentlemen. I'll be back before you know it. If not today, tomorrow, if not tomorrow, well, you know, next week. Don't worry. I'll be back. Oh, don't go to the garden. You should know. I'm Hanuman. No, tell me. Demons. What are you talking about? No. You mean you think you can steal the walls to that kingdom there? Absolutely. If we just have a little music, a little dance, you know, we can whip up their spirits into the air. We can make them smart and do anywhere. Are you kidding me? You didn't get it great for poetry, I hope. No. Wait a second. Oh, there's no way for me. I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do nothing. You know, I'm gonna go and join those ogres. What do you mean? I can't. I could do nothing. I couldn't? Like what? What? Well, you know, you just try. You can do all kinds of things. I look at my finger. I got 30 finger deals. No. What? Follow my finger. I'm following this, but it ain't going anywhere. Can I teach you something about the power of poetry? The power of positive things. Repeat after me. Not yet, stupid. Not yet. If you want to move up. If you want to move up. If you want to be found. If you want to be found. In the sky, you can swim through the air. You can swim through the air. When you've got such things of music, you can go anywhere. But then I think how I'm stupid. I didn't leave the ground. I think how I'm terrible. And now I can be found as a threat. No. What's that open air? It's a curve. No, it's a plane. It's creeping into that car. Her partner in this band is Eric Stern, who's multi-talented and has often been seen in Shakespeare's Santa Cruz as well as his own dance. Then, after some other remarks, Eric Stern will be joined by Ken Williams to do another duet. Ellen and Eric. Because we've been so appreciated here in this community and partly it's because our cultural council has made dance part of the arts community and not left at an orphan as it sometimes is in other communities. But the cultural council that we've come to celebrate tonight has opened doors between all the artists in this community and the community at large. That's what the cultural council has been about ever since its beginning. Tandy Bealin Company is now almost sweet 16 and five years older than the cultural council. We remember the beginning pretty well. We remember all the hard work that went into the action plan and the many, many meetings and the anticipation about fundraising. The creation of the Board of Trustees, a regular Santa Cruz who's who of hard workers and risk takers and people who then as well as now know how to open doors by opening hearts or maybe it's opening hearts by opening doors. Not only the Board, but all the committees were people from business and from government and from the arts, sat together, worked together and things got done. And we all learned and learned from each other. We learned how to give and we learned how to ask. I also remember a time when we did have some doubts. Would the new kid on the block be competing with us, the existing arts organizations, the one out there in the field, in the trenches or very scarce dollars? But the proof, I think you can see many of the facts in your programs and I can testify from the records of Tandy Bealin Company that there is no doubt that the positive impact on all of the arts organizations is absolutely without doubt. Just as the Cultural Council has gained donors, we gained donors as they gained more contributed income so we all gained contributed income and we have also discovered that there are many more open doors. So now it's our pleasure to join together this evening to recognize all some of the many accomplishments of the Cultural Council. As a major force for developing volunteerism for the arts and for educating all of us about the benefits of strong and active community-based boards and it's our pleasure to join to thank the Cultural Council for creating an environment in which cultural philanthropy is recognized as an important value not just by a few people but by a very broad spectrum of the community. And it is our pleasure to join to salute the Cultural Council for setting high standards for the artistic community, standards of excellence, coupled with an understanding of the values of innovation and of diversity. We all celebrate the Cultural Council tonight and we share with the Cultural Council a commitment to those values that make possible a creative, innovative, vibrant, and economically stable cultural light here at Santa Cruz. And now we'd like to celebrate the Cultural Council with another dance. It's a duet that's more physical and it comes from a full-length work created by Tandy Beale in 1987 called The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light. It's called Duet and the music is by the co-artistic director of Tandy Beale and company John School. It's performed by Ken Williams and Eric Stern. Left. With this microphone it's plan three, actually. My name is Robert Corins. I'm the chair of the County Arts Commission would like to welcome you all here this evening to celebrate with us the awarding of our 1990 Artist of the Year to the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County. Now what kind of artist is the Cultural Council? Well, the Arts Commission thinks that the Cultural Council is that kind of artist that causes the arts to happen. And so this evening you've heard already and you'll hear some more what that means, what the details are before a few more presentations happen. I'd also like to recognize some people here tonight who have received this award before. The Cultural Council joins a distinguished group. Their name is on a plaque now that will be hanging at the county building. And other people on this plaque are Tandy Beale. I don't think Tandy could be here tonight. Lou Harrison, who is here. The Rio Guild of Music. Michael Stamph, the executive director is here representing the Tribunal of Music. I know he was coming but he was going to come play. Perhaps not here. Chuck Hilger, he's here. So please extend a round of applause to them. Council, on behalf of the county, I'm thinking back to 1981 when I first came on the board when the funding for the council came forward. It seems to me that here since then you have done a wonderful job. There's an algorithm that says that politics is the art of the impossible. But it seems to me that the Cultural Council, politically in its own way, is addressing the art of the impossible and doing it and accomplishing it by making possible so many words of art in our community to enrich our lives. So it's my pleasure today to present a proclamation honoring the Cultural Council for the gifts that you've brought to our community in supporting the arts. I think that the facts really speak for themselves. The expansion of your budget from some 237,000 10 years ago to 865,000 today. Inserting more than 25,000 students in our community. Awarding grants from 174,000 dollars in our community. For the workshops of artists that you sponsored, you bring the world outside Santa Cruz County to the performances and the works of art that are created here, and you bring forward in the great way those works of art in our community. It's my great pleasure to proclaim that the Board of Supervisors proclaims the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz at Santa Cruz County's 1990 Artist of the Year. You richly deserve this award and the work you do to foster this many fold. Thank you very much. I'm now representing State Senator Henry Melo. I'm a part of the arts. It gives me great pleasure to present a resolution from a federal committee that he checked out for his occasion. We're at seven warehouses here, and all of you heard the warehouses that I spoke a few minutes ago. I just want to emphasize that they all expressed the seven magnificent ways that the Cultural Council makes our community such a wonderful arts community in which to live. And it's resolved by a federal committee that has never seen great pleasure and congratulating the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County upon the occasion of a collection of 1999 Arts of the Year by Santa Cruz County Arts Commission to manage the Cultural Council for its many cultural contributions to the community and to convey that written word to the community success that both the community resolution adopted in May 4, 1990, signed by David Reverie Chairman and Henry Daydell, Senator of the Center for Districts. Thank you very much, Roy. And then Donna Blitzer, representing State Assembly Member Sam Farr. To be here on behalf of Assembly Member Farr, who is in Sacramento this evening and unfortunately can't be here himself, I have a certificate of recognition from the State Assembly. We heard earlier how the Cultural Council has been recognized recently by the Governor and the State Arts Council. And it's true that it does have great state recognition. It's also recognized on a national level. When I spoke to Sam earlier and asked him if he had anything special he wanted me to say, he was reminded that as a member of the National Endowment for the Arts Advisory Committee, whenever he goes back to Washington, D.C., the first thing people ask him about is how is the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County doing? So we're very proud of it and I'm very pleased that I can present this certificate of recognition. Congratulations. We're here today at the San Cruz County Symphony and past president of that organization. We're here tonight, as we all know, to honor the Cultural Council. One of the most important things that they do, one of the toughest things they do is to provide venues, to provide performing spaces for those of us in the performing arts to perform. And it's no easy task, as I can attest to. But I want to give you two examples of how the Cultural Council has really made a difference in these spaces in this county. One is the Fox Theater case in Watsonville. Up until about five years ago, there was no performing going on at the Fox. There was cinema, there was film, but no performing. Years ago, there had been performing back in the 30s and the 40s, but not in the last 40 to 50 years. Thanks to the Cultural Council and its work with the Bajaro Valley Arts Council, close to $50,000 was raised to bring sprinklers to the backstage area, which the fire people said was absolutely necessary if you were going to make a performing venue out of the Fox, to buy the sound system, which was necessary in order to do some amplification, which is necessary in some performing. And last but not least, the toughest problem of all turned out to be raising the screen. You may not think that was difficult, but that screen had been rooted in place for 45 years. And it took three different firms to come to Watsonville and finally raise the screen. And it was thanks to the coordinated help of the Cultural Council that the right contractor was found to do that. The Santa Cruz County Symphony is one of the beneficiaries of the fact that the Fox is a performing space. We have just heard today, as a matter of fact, that the Fox is going to be repaired. It will be ready by the end of the summer, as we expect, and will be back in the Fox, after the Fox for our Christmas concert this year, in December. So we're very happy about that and we give thanks to the Cultural Council for their help in making the Fox a performing venue. The second thing the Cultural Council has done that I can think of, I know there are many others in the performing spaces area, but it's what we're doing right now by way of the Cultural Council Performing Arts Commission, which was commissioned by the County of Santa Cruz, the Board of Supervisors, have asked the Cultural Council to put together a study committee to come up with a plan for a major performing arts space or spaces in Santa Cruz County. And the Cultural Council has undertaken that task thanks to the wonderful leadership of Phil Rather, your president. We have a commission of 23 people. We're in our second month of meeting. We've divided into six subcommittees and we hope to do the definitive, the final, the absolute, the last study on where we should have a major performing arts facility or facilities in this county. So it's not an easy task either, but with the Cultural Council's help, I think we're going to be able to do it. Now, what I have to do most importantly tonight is to introduce the Silver and Strings, which we're going to play for you now. Silver and Strings was founded by Stephanie Gelman-Peck, who is the principal flutist, our principal flutist with Santa Cruz County Symphony. She's also a spectra artist. She's also a very wonderful person. And with her in the Silver and Strings will be William Rusanak, violinist. William was concert master for the White House Orchestra in Washington, D.C. under four different presidents and we're fortunate enough to have him as a retired person here in Santa Cruz County and playing the violin in small groups like this one with Stephanie. Also, our realist is Carol Cutch, K-U-T-S-C-H, Carol Cutch, and the cellist is a long time, Santa Cruzan, a wonderful player who's played with the Santa Cruz County Symphony in the past, Karen Andre. They're going to play the first movement from Mozart's flute quartet and following that, they're going to play a contemporary suite in three movements by Richard Lawrence, who's a Bay Area composer. So would you help me welcome Silver and Strings? I'm very happy to state that I am a past member of the first board justices of the Cultural Council. And by now you would think that probably most of the things that they said to congratulate and recognize and honor the Cultural Council are not getting ready to play even now. But that's not really true. One thing that I think the visual artists, those of you who are here and the ones who are not, would agree with me that probably the one singular most important advantage that the Cultural Council has been responsible for over the past years has been an open studio. Because what it's done for the visual art community has not only opened their doors to the community at large and to our visitors, but it's also opened their doors to each other to see what other people's work is like. Whether it's painting, sculpture, jewelry, fiber, fabric, prints, whatever it might be. And have a weekend or two weekends of sharing and getting together, trading ideas, getting to know each other. Then going on and having a forum thanks to the Cultural Council of being able to open the doors to the community and support them on an economic basis and on a economic basis as well. So for that singular, I practiced participating in it in one form or another in all of it. So for that, I'm going to list the artists for you. Thank you very much. I practiced this whole thing last week. I left one to New York thinking coming back. I got back about a nine and a half ago expecting to find something that is not here. All I can say is, Brian, where is the art? I mean, we've had performances tonight we've had all kinds of things, but I see no visual art. No paintings. Something's a mess. This is somewhat tragic. I did have this piece that I brought back with me as our friend who's sitting here and is supposed to give to. However, I can't let this go by. I'm going to have to go over my two minutes and have a little performance here. Well, have a particular. So we're not left out. Visual art, painting, painting. I'll do a couple of tunes for you. One from Oregon Best. I shall jump on out. Some wake up to me. On the Hewlett Foundation she expressed her concern as to what was going to happen with arts organizations in the aftermath of this tremendous devastation both in Santa Cruz and the Greater Bay Area. And within four weeks after the quake a plan had been put together so that by early December it was possible for all of us here in the county to meet with representatives of the Bay Area foundations and the Cultural Council and they actually had a plan put together in that short amount of time which was really a tremendous achievement a remarkable achievement given the fact that they had lost their offices we had lost our offices people didn't know how early we were situated the telephone systems were out the fact that they could keep their staff together and keep their chin up in the face of this anxiety that we're all experiencing was truly remarkable and I have to say that I hope as well as we did in the arts community so thank you very much for that but the aftermath of all of this is that through the efforts of the Cultural Council and these Bay Area foundations over two million dollars will be raised to help in earthquake recovery for arts organizations in the Bay Area and over 600,000 of that is coming and will be coming to Santa Cruz County which is a remarkable achievement over 30% of that money raised earthquake relief will be coming to our area because the Cultural Council has the respect and has the aberration and just people know this is an organization that they can trust and I believe that there's over 100 individuals and probably 30 organizations that are going to benefit from this and we're all very appreciative of that so I know my three minutes are probably coming up very quickly here and without I'd like to introduce Tito Samba and the Mbongi Dance Theater Project and the Specter Arts Group and the Mbongi Dance Performance I'm in Santa Cruz since 1983 I've been teaching here and performing through school teaching children about Africa and letting people know that we have to learn from each other as the world is changing I want to say to you I thank you the Cultural Council to invite me here and be here to celebrate with you together we're going to play from Africa and we're going to be playing some bells and we're going to be singing together here I know you've been singing here for a little while so I want to say to you Mote everybody say Mote let me say Mote so we're going to play some bells for you this is how we solve a problem in Africa when somebody have a problem the psychiatry in Africa it works with the elders young people the middle age together and we come like this so I'm so glad to see young people old people together tonight here so I want to say before we dance a little bit because I would like to have everybody coming and dance tonight because today is a celebration so we're going to move the drum we're going to be talking to all of us tonight let me hear you say like this in Santa Cruz being replaced you can go anywhere Los Angeles you can't find the control of the masses that you get from Africa people come here you can see there's from Senegal from Nigeria here in Santa Cruz you'll be surprised that we have something very special here this Sunday we are going to sleep in the hotel we have a show this Sunday the more that we can we come with the real one and it's going to be music for cleaning dressing in the business from Africa and always in Santa Cruz so you are lucky people incredible sense of an artistic community but I think we just seen exactly what kind of artistic community we have with this dance I didn't want to say a few things we've all talked about the great programs, the great services the cultural council has provided for us for the past 10 years and yet we really only have captured tonight we've only focused on maybe half of the things that they've accomplished year in and year out for the groups in this town for the people in this town the most impressive being I think that sense of artistic community as we rebuild this county and this county becomes even more culturally diverse as we've just seen and as the arts take even a bigger role it's going to be even more important to keep the sense of artistic community and the leadership that the cultural council provides is going to be even more important see I did work getting part of my speech there was one ambition for the program it was my fault Sven Davis was our technical director and worked with Evan Parker so I wanted to make sure he got a mention and also Steve Coulter came to work with us today and helped us get this space in the shape for a performing arts festival so to speak and also Eddie from Corby Thurall showed up and he was a lot of help as well one more time all the great talent that we see all the time he's had a great time the reception and some more great jazz from Tim Jackson friends